The written Chinese language consists of a large number of ideograms or characters with each ideogram representing a particular Chinese word. The modern squared style of Chinese writing became essentially fixed at the beginning of the first century and has changed little since that time.
The Chinese language is unique among modern languages due to the overwhelming number of individual characters absolutely necessary for everyday correspondence. For example, the K'ang-Hsi dictionary lists over 43,000 Chinese characters, modern high school or college dictionaries list between 10,000 and 15,000 characters and the Chinese telegraph code book contains over 9,000 characters, the minimum number deemed necessary for everyday correspondence.
The large number of Chinese characters required for even basic written correspondence has caused major problems for Chinese-using people in the modern world. This is particulary so because Chinese writing does not have an alphabet or a system for ordering words as do most languages. The problem primarily lies in the design of devices for word processing, printing or transmitting Chinese characters such as typewriters, typesetters, printing telegraphs and most recently computer devices. Due to the large number of characters involved, such devices have required enormously complicated keyboards without a commonly accepted simple order and code for the entry of information into and out of the devices. A prime example of this problem lies in the fact that in today's computerized world, a computer input and output device does not exist which is capable of controlling the minimum number of Chinese computer characters necessary for everyday correspondence in the business world. This fact has hindered the development of Chinese computer technology, and word processing devices, and forced reliance on various arbitrary coding techniques.
Many solutions to this problem have been proposed in the past, all of which attempt to identify the basic components of the Chinese character and then utilize the character components to put the complete characters in order and control them. One such solution is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 2,613,795 granted to Lin Yutang on Oct. 14, 1952. This patent teaches the classification of Chinese characters into smaller groups by referring to the configuration of the character strokes at the top of the character and the configuration of the character strokes at the bottom of the character. Classification of the characters in this manner permits construction of a Chinese language keyboard, for use in a typewriter or the like, which has a relatively small number of keys in proportion to the number of characters that may be printed. More particularly, the teachings in this patent suggest the use of a keyboard having thirty-six (36) keys corresponding to the top configurations of the characters, twenty-eight (28) keys corresponding to the bottom configurations of the characters and eight additional keys for top/bottom selection, resulting in a total of 72 keys. Various keys are selected in combination to form or select complete Chinese characters.
This control system, although providing a partial solution to the problem, is still not entirely satisfactory in that 72 keys are required for character formation and the character must be selected from a character group. It is apparent that a system requiring fewer keys or character components to put all characters in order and control them would be superior to the system taught in this reference.
It is also to be noted that in contemporary Chinese typewriters, the user must memorize the position of individual characters on the character board.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an ordering system for Chinese characters which permits character control from fewer character elements than the number of character components required in the prior art systems and without a need to select characters from a group.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for controlling and ordering Chinese characters from a limited number of character components such that the construction of Chinese word processing devices is greatly simplified.